The Girl Who Waited
by EnglandBabe1997
Summary: Wendy had been waiting for so long. And she knew the waiting would kill her. But while there was a chance she didn't care.
1. Chapter 1

She was the Girl who Waited. And slowly, _waiting_, she became the Woman who Waited and then the Mother who Waited, the _Grandmother_.

She'd never loved her husband as much as she should have. And sometimes she hated herself for it. But most of the time she was pleased. She'd never admit it. But those feelings of settling for second best reminded her every single day of her marriage so that she wouldn't, couldn't, forget.

Now that her husband was gone it would be so easy to forget. And if she forgot her stories would stop. She'd move house, move on.

She'd close the window.

The window hadn't been closed in seventy years.

Just in case.

She'd never moved out.

Just in case.

She'd never stopped telling stories.

And she never would.

The window would still open until she was gone.

oOo

They said she'd caught a chill. They had blamed the open window. When she was younger she would have gone feral at the idea. Now she was just empty and sad.

She'd thought the waiting would kill her.

And now it would.

But she still wouldn't let them close the window.

Never.

She'd promised.

She could feel the chill right done to her bones, unearthing buried memories of pirates and crocodiles and mermaids and cold, black water, like ice and the faint whispering echo's. And while there was breath in her body the window would still open.

She was still waiting.

The clock struck midnight.

She closed her eyes.

oOo

Peter dropped softly to the floor, catching his foot on the window frame.

It slammed shut.


	2. Chapter 2

**I'm not quite sure why I decided that this wasn't finished, but I think it needed some of Peter's POV, so here we are x**

He'd never forgotten her, not really. But time passes differently in Neverland. Peter was so busy flirting with the mermaids, rescuing the Red Indians, battling the pirates, that he never noticed the clock turning.

After all there wasn't really any way to track time passing when everyone was frozen in time, ageless.

Peter never noticed how long he'd been in Neverland, despite his promise. He'd never forgotten Wendy, wondering if she'd moved out of the nursery, if she'd stopped telling stories. His kind hadn't connected the passage of time with her because he was ageless and therefore, to him, so was she.

And the window was open. She'd left the window open.

He swept into the room, knocking his foot in the window frame, moving his toes quickly to avoid them being slammed between the wood.

There was a woman at the window, pale and wrinkled and still. She was in a white nightgown, like what Wendy used to wear.

Wendy!

Where was she?

Why wasn't she here?

A glint of moonlight caught the reflection of a kiss, resting proudly on the old woman's chest.

Wendy's kiss.

It was Wendy, this elderly, frail lady. Time passed as it should, as it did in the real world, and Peter had forgotten.

"Wendy?" He whispered, cupping one withered cheek in his head.

She didn't stir.

"Wendy?" He repeated, louder this time. "Wendy!"

There were footsteps on the corridor, the thundering of feet on the stairs. Peter dived for the window, the one that had closed when he'd flown in, hovering on the roof. He listened carefully, more carefully than anything else he'd done in his life.

But Wendy didn't wake up.

They said she wouldn't, not ever again. He refused to believe them.

Wendy would wake up. She had to.

She hadn't finished Cinderella yet.


	3. Chapter 3

He stayed by her side over the next few days, watching curiously as people moved Wendy around and people came to cry over her. There was one young woman who came by a lot, one who looked very much like Wendy, who the others called 'Jane'.

Peter remembered Wendy saying how much she liked that name.

More people came to cry. It was an odd custom, one that he didn't understand. After all Wendy was just sleeping, just like in Sleeping Beauty. He'd quite liked that story as well as all the others, and Tootles had been particularly fond of the Princess who slept for a hundred years.

But then they tried to put Wendy into a box, something horrible and wooden, rather than leave her out of the bed or put her in a glass box like in Snow White.

That was another story, one of the few she'd finished. He could imagine Wendy as he'd known her stretched out in a glass box, never having aged a day. She would get out sometimes to tell stories and fight pirates but she would sleep in the box rather than the Wendy House they'd built for her.

Only she had. She would never wake up, he would never give her another kiss, or another thimble.

Peter never heard the end of Cinderella.


	4. Chapter 4

**This is the last chapter for this x I had planned on leaving this at the last chapter, but I didn't think it was quite finished x Please tell me what you think of this last bit and if the ending isn't a bit too cliché :)**

He left London as soon as they finished putting Wendy in the ground. He couldn't bear to stay, bear to understand.

He was a child, always. He didn't need, didn't _want_ to understand.

He had told the Lost Boys that Wendy was gone and wasn't coming back and they hadn't understood either, not any of them.

It had just been him and the boys after that. He lost track of the years that passed, and this time he didn't care, Wendy gone and not coming back.

If he thought about he not coming back he wouldn't know what to do. He would break.

So he fought pirates and rescued the Red Indians and never ever thought about her.

Until a storm started to brew, like the one on the last day Wendy had spent in Neverland, the clouds stirring angrily and swirling ominously. It made him feel something he couldn't understand at a memory he couldn't quite remember.

But he followed the feeling, so tangible it was a thread.

And he found the Wendy House and everything that he'd been forgetting. The memories rushed up to the surface, something like pain washing over him, things he couldn't comprehend in his childhood.

And Wendy was sitting on her bed in her white nightgown, smiling.

Peter smiled back. It was something else he'd forgotten to do.

"I've been waiting," She said.


End file.
